PlayStation Move creator wants to open the device to PC users

The PS3 Move controller has shown the world what it can do in games like …

At the D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas this week, we sat down with Sony's Dr. Richard Marks, the man behind the PlayStation Move, to talk motion controls.

While Microsoft's Kinect has been opened a bit, allowing hobbyist programmers to play with the hardware and write some of their own software, the Move is steadfastly locked to the PlayStation 3. But according to Dr. Marks, that may not be the case forever. In fact, he wants to give tinkerers access to all the data the Move creates, not just the little bit Kinect hackers have squeezed out of Microsoft's hardware.

Hints of PC drivers

This speculation began when the gaming press noticed a session at the upcoming Game Developers Conference that seemed to suggest Sony would be releasing PC drivers for the Move.

"This talk will bring developers up to speed on developing for the PlayStation Move controller. We will cover developing for the new PlayStation Move Sharp Shooter accessory," the schedule explains. "We will discuss the new Move Server project that will make it possible for academics and hobbyists to develop software using the PlayStation Move controller on their own PCs."

We asked Dr. Marks point blank: is this happening?

"For a long time I've mentioned in my talks that we'd like to let more people innovate with Move. It's a nice tool. It is made for the PS3, so it's difficult in that sense for us to let it happen," he told Ars. "I would really like to see it happen, so all the really creative minds in the labs and the hobbyists can actually play around with it. But as of now, we haven't announced anything official. But it is something I really want to see happen as soon as possible."

Openness can bring publicity. Videos of hobbyists playing with their Kinects and working on their own projects have been all over the gaming blogs, making Microsoft's motion controller seem like a hot item, even though Dr. Marks points out that the work done on the Kinect has so far been very limited.

"With the Kinect in particular they pretty much just grabbed the raw data from the camera," he said. The skeleton tracking and the higher-level functions that Microsoft baked into the Kinect are still unavailable for most hobbyist developers.

"Actually the systems are kind of equivalent right now," Marks pointed out, since the PlayStation Eye has likewise been hacked so that enthusiasts can look at the raw data being picked up by the accessory.

The trick is to go deeper. "We would like to go beyond that so you can have the full Move experience available for people so they can get as good data as the game can have," he said. Giving the end user complete access to the stream of data coming from the Move's gyros and accelerometers, and access to the programs the Eye uses to turn that data into 3D controls, would give PC tinkerers a powerful new toy.

Dr. Marks reiterated that this is something he'd like to see happen, and I got the sense that Sony may not share his level of enthusiasm for opening up the Move so thoroughly to hobbyist developers.

The Move will remain a PS3 product

Even though he's clearly enthusiastic about the idea of researchers and hobbyists using the Move, it will remain a gaming product, and will be marketed as such.

"I think the Move is a good PlayStation 3 product. It makes sense for that console; it doesn't make sense as a product for PC," he told me. He pointed out that hobbyists and researchers would have a great time with a version of the Move that worked with their PCs, but that the hardware has limitations as an interface for computers.

"It's just not the right kind of form factor to sit in front of the PC with this sized device," he said. Something smaller may work better.

The Move won't replace a computer mouse any time soon, but with larger screens, support for PCs, and talented independent developers, who knows what can be done with the hardware? Dr. Marks is keen to find out, and we're looking forward to see what exactly will be announced at GDC later this year.

This seems very me-tooish to me and i'm not generally one to use the term.

Kinect is cool because you don't have to use controllers and its a different experience. This not so much.

I think the Move is cool because it opens up the last few types of games the Wii can do well to Playstation 3 owners. Light gun games, motion controlled puzzle games (me wants Boom Blox in HD), and FPS (think Metroid 3 type controls) are now all available on the Playstation 3.

I liked "Right Here Waiting" as much as anyone else, but FGS the Kinect-bashing by this idiot is old,old old. Move's just a bunch of accellererometers and an LED being picked up by a webcam. What exactly is there to "open"?

Blu-Ray was obsolete before it was launched due to digital distribution. Kudos to Microsoft for having the common-sense to not put an overpriced, obsolete technology like Blu-ray in their console. Netflix streaming FTW.

Blu-Ray was obsolete before it was launched due to digital distribution. Kudos to Microsoft for having the common-sense to not put an overpriced, obsolete technology like Blu-ray in their console. Netflix streaming FTW.

Quit trolling. Broadband needs to get better in the U.S. before that's true. Sony and Microsoft would be stupid to distribute HD games only digitally next generation. They'd leave lots of customers without a way to get their games. That also applies to other regions where connections are worse.

Wait a minute - skeleton tracking in baked into the Kinect hardware? I thought that was provided by the software API on the 360? As far as I know, the camera and depth map data is all there is to get from the hardware; implying otherwise is dishonest.

As I understand it, the Playstation 3 uses Bluetooth and USB for its input devices. (I have never used a PS3, so bear with me.) Why do special drivers need to be written for the Move and for the Sixaxis? If they need drivers to communicate using a nonstandard protocol, then wouldn't it make sense to simply publish the protocol rather than go through the expense of creating drivers?

FYI, the PS1 came before the X-Box, and the EyeToy came before the Kinnect. Both companies are copying each other imo.

Well, it's not even really copying, is it? It's building upon each other's ideas — the sort of thing that distinguishes an industry from a bunch of unrelated companies launching entirely unrelated products.

That said, the Move doesn't seem to bring a lot that's new to the table.

Well there are unofficial drivers to make the Dualshock/Sixaxis work with PC. IMHO it's the best controller for emulators like the SNES and whatnot due to the great D-Pad and button placement. However, the unofficial drivers are a pain to install and setup, plus I don't think they work on Windows 7.

I would say the easiest one to hookup is the 360 pad, but as before, the D-Pad is horrendous. Logitech makes some good controllers though.

Blu-Ray was obsolete before it was launched due to digital distribution. Kudos to Microsoft for having the common-sense to not put an overpriced, obsolete technology like Blu-ray in their console. Netflix streaming FTW.

*rolls eyes* Yah because when you download from MS you get 1080p + 3D + extras...oh wait. No you don't because then you would be downloading 5GB on a pipe that most customers don't have bandwidth for. Seriously. Enough of this. Media will continue to progress faster then bandwidth will be able to handle for the foreseeable future.

Sony to users: Here hack, play around with the move controller.while also saying you cannot hack the PS3, you do not own the console? What's going to stop them from suing when someone finds something on the move controllers they don't like?

Blu-Ray was obsolete before it was launched due to digital distribution. Kudos to Microsoft for having the common-sense to not put an overpriced, obsolete technology like Blu-ray in their console. Netflix streaming FTW.

Microsoft's solution was the HD-DVD add on as mentioned by Davis, in order for it to work, you needed an Xbox 360, and the $199.99 USB HD-DVD device. According to Wikipedia, the last HD-DVD's to roll out in the US were in November of 2008. Technically, as those 360's didn't have HDMI you were also left with a 1080i output max (although a negligable effect on a progressive display) After that HD-DVD was dead. Oh yeah, and all the HD-DVD add on did was play movies.

The PS3 was launched in November of 2006 and I can still buy and purchase Blu-Ray's (new content too!) to this day with my initial $600 PS3 purchase. So far I've gotten 60 months out of that so called expensive obsolete technology vs the 21 months that an owner of a 360 and HD-DVD add-on received with their $500 investment.

Both consoles do HD Netflix just fine, and the PS3 doesn't require a paid subscription to anything other than Netflix in order for it to function.

As for Netflix retiring physical media, that's a different conversation altogether, although I completely disagree with you there as well.

A) Why the heck would anyone on the PC even bother? If you want wii/move style controls but with much more accuracy then the Razor/Sixense product is due shortly and will not entail holding a device that looks like Anne Summers' best friendB) Ben, where is this move fetish coming from? I've read so many reviews from so many sites and you might be right but it just doesn't seem to tie in. My friends with Move systems also seem to say "meh". This is not a partisan argument by the way, just not seen Kuchera level Move love anywhere else. Killzone for example, most other sites have said pretty good but use the controller. Perhaps Sony needs to say Move or nothing?

HAHA! This article is hilarious, what a cheesy picture of Leonardo taking the Move deeper..come on now! Besides the point, I love the Move..one of the best motion controller available. If you haven't tried it, I would most def. suggest it before you have an opinion about it.

Sony to users: Here hack, play around with the move controller.while also saying you cannot hack the PS3, you do not own the console? What's going to stop them from suing when someone finds something on the move controllers they don't like?

Microsoft does the same thing... You think Microsoft would just stand by if someone released a hack that would effect Xbox Live?

That is all that Sony is doing. I doubt they care if you hack your PS3 but they do not want that hacked system released on their network. The damage hacked systems can cause to Playstation Network is the only real issue here.

I am not taking sides here I like my PS3 and I like my Xbox 360. They are both great system and I realize that they are trying to make money and they have to protect their assests.

Does that mean they're gonna release drivers for the PlayStation Eye? I would have bought that thing by now If i could use it on more than just the PS3. It's a decent USB webcam (decent enough for Skype at least) with a really good microphone.

Blu-Ray was obsolete before it was launched due to digital distribution. Kudos to Microsoft for having the common-sense to not put an overpriced, obsolete technology like Blu-ray in their console. Netflix streaming FTW.

*rolls eyes* Yah because when you download from MS you get 1080p + 3D + extras...oh wait. No you don't because then you would be downloading 5GB on a pipe that most customers don't have bandwidth for. Seriously. Enough of this. Media will continue to progress faster then bandwidth will be able to handle for the foreseeable future.

If 5GB was enough to deploy good quality HD video, we could have stuck with DVD media. Turns out, if you try to squeeze a 2 hours of 1080p video into 5GB, what comes out doesn't look much different than a DVD.

And yes, I'm taking the troll-bait here, because everyone already knows this. Streaming video is good for some things, but it's not going to match the picture quality of physical media any time soon. That may not be important to some people, but clearly the market prefers HD.

Who cares, Move is nothing but a crappy Kinect Wii hybrid and has little value going forward as better technologies (such as Kinect) mature.

There is absolutely nothing special about a simple webcam and an accelerometer filled wand..

It does not even compare to Kinect now, which will most likely receive an update soon to increase the camera resolution to be able to track smaller objects such as fingers.

The Kinect is still only good for jumping around in front of your TV. Every game made for the Kinect will be simplistic in nature because there's not a lot you can do without any buttons at all. How do you accelerate and brake in a racing game? How do you pull a trigger in a FPS? Enjoy your dancing and jumping games.

Also, please provide a link to information regarding the supposed update to the Kinect that will allow it to track fingers.

A) Why the heck would anyone on the PC even bother? If you want wii/move style controls but with much more accuracy then the Razor/Sixense product is due shortly and will not entail holding a device that looks like Anne Summers' best friend

Yes, but it would entail buying a Razer product, which is a fate that I wouldn't wish upon anyone. Besides, the Move is still going to work 3 weeks after you buy it.

A) Why the heck would anyone on the PC even bother? If you want wii/move style controls but with much more accuracy then the Razor/Sixense product is due shortly and will not entail holding a device that looks like Anne Summers' best friend

Yes, but it would entail buying a Razer product, which is a fate that I wouldn't wish upon anyone. Besides, the Move is still going to work 3 weeks after you buy it.

Ah, didn't realise that. Have my first Razer product (lefty death adder) and love it. Fingers crossed for the Sixense as I have a halfway decent gaming PC but do find sitting crouched over with a mouse a touch restrictive (at least for fps style games). Singularly unimpressed with the Move, the sixense looks like a much better take on that style of controller to me (if it works). Love my kinect but not for the kind of game we are discussing, more the drunken party game with mates.